Sculpture honors Tyler Tajan
—Photo by DAC COLLINS The snow sculpture, located downtown near the Boundary County Museum, features some of the local species that can be found in and around the Kootenai River Valley.
BONNERS FERRY — Downtown Bonners Ferry has a new art installation located near the Boundary County Museum, but it won’t be there forever. That’s because, like Frosty the Snowman, the sculpture is made from a malleable but temporary medium that will eventually melt into a puddle with the onset of spring.
Lee Harris, who is the captain of the Bonners Ferry International Snow Sculpting team, says this is the 35th year that she has represented either Bonners Ferry, the state of Idaho or, most recently, the U.S. in snow sculpting competitions.
“Most of the time, the team has done competitions,” Harris explains. “We have done some demonstrations up in Canada...and we are going more and more in that direction these days.” She says that while competing for a cash prize adds some excitement to the events, it also “takes a certain amount of fun out of it.” Demonstrations still have many of the same regulations as competitions, such as strict time limits and rules prohibiting the use of power tools, but they remove the subjective aspect that a panel of judges brings to a competition.
While the team has traveled to Winnipeg for demonstrations the past two years, they will not be participating in a demonstration this winter.
In fact, Harris said she was planning on taking this year off until the snow started piling up. So she contacted local realtor Joe Farrell last-minute to see about doing something in Georgia Mae Plaza.
“The next day,” Harris says, “Chris from the city called and said, ‘We’re gonna sponsor you.’ And it just all fell into place...Pro-X says, ‘We’ll loan you the stuff’. Then I started calling local restaurants and every single one just went, ‘Yes!’”
Harris says that she is extremely grateful for these local sponsors, and especially the city of Bonners Ferry, which has been, in her words, “incredibly supportive” of the project.
With all their sponsors in place, the International Snow Sculpting team, which included Shelia Bowen, Kent Kraber, and Wes and Grayce Raynor, began sculpting on Friday, Jan. 20 and continued working through the weekend.
According to Harris, this year’s snow sculpture was completed in memory of Cynthia “Tyler” Tajan and is based on the theme of wildlife in the Kootenai River. It features raptors, otters and whitetail deer, which were some of Tajan’s favorite local species.
“It’s a memorial to her,” Harris says. “And the rest honors the river.”